Thursday, December 13, 2007

Work's picking up, and I'm going to be on the road as well, so count on updates being few and far between until the new year. Happy feast of alvis, nine nights of krebula, shikradon, or whatever it is you heretics celebrate these days.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Timeshift gives us a concept that appeals to the god-moder in all of us. What if, in a first person shooter, we could slow, stop, or reverse time? My question is, what if a neat concept actually had a decent game behind it, huh?!The concept behind Timeshift is very compelling. So is the plot's premise. So compelling you keep trying to push forward, get farther, just to find out what happens. It's a pity the game is another slack-dev'd, console-hobbled, twisted mishmash of bad ideas that eventually it just feels like you're stabbing yourself in the fingers over and over again just to see if it eventually starts to feel good.

It doesn't. And I'm talking about both the stabbing and Timeshift.

Well, that's not fair to say... I don't know if eventually Timeshift does get better, because eventually I just couldn't take it any more and I had to stop. So I don't know how it ends.

Now, it has a few good things going for it. The graphics are great, the levels are competently designed, and as mentioned before, the plot is intriguing and the ability to screw with the flow of time is fun. The problem is the rest of the game.

My Gripes With Timeshift:1) The ControlsOy, the controls. You can tell this game was ported to the PC as an afterthought because you need a bajillion different buttons to activate all your different abilities. A console controller may have 13 different buttons, but on a keyboard/mouse setup, us PC gamers like our controls sleek and efficient. Crysis did this right... a simple hold and drag of the middle mouse cursor to switch between various abilities. Timeshift has not done this right. You have different keys on the keyboard for each ability, and another for "I'm too lazy to pick an ability to use now, you pick one you think I should use, computer." Then, to make matters worse, the game ignores established PC FPS conventions for common tasks. Are you used to grenades being G? Use/get in being E or F? Well forget all that noise. X is now use/get in, Q is now grenades, E is zoom, and you're just damn lucky WASD do what you expect them to. Middle mouse button is Melee attack. Re-binding aside, the entire paradigm of one key/one function should no longer even be an issue. It's a failing of design.2) The Voice ActingApparently the game's budget ran out when they got the point they needed to hire actors to voice all the characters... because every single enemy character sounds exactly the same and says the exact same things. A lot of times, when you are listening to them around a corner, it will sound like one guy having a conversation with himself because he's so damned lonely. It's a small point, but one that just makes the game feel chintzier.3) Artsy Fartsy "Our game is rad because you don't know what the F$%# is going on" bullshit.Ok, I get it.. I traveled in time and into an alternate timeline. I think. But do I have amnesia too or something? Why else would little spurts of "memories" be popping up between levels and stuff? Just because the time stream has become fractured, does that mean my own personal recollection of events has to be disjointed and incomplete? Is it entirely necessary to throw me into the game's situation wondering who I am, what the hell is going on, and exactly what it is I'm doing here, not to mention how things came to this point?4) Only sniper-type weapons have reticles smaller than a JFK Half-DollarCome ON. Alright, I get it, the assault rifle can be a little off sometimes.. but to make the reticle a big circle just feels dumb.5) The zoom and the "focus."I mentioned above that E is zoom. I can't tell you how many times I tried to zoom with middle or right click, or tried to get in a vehicle with E, only to have the wrong thing happen. But what makes zoom really irritating to me, is that somebody apparently thought it would be cool to make things not at the same range as what is directly under the reticle be blurry. All this means to me is that whatever I look at is blurry. When I look around, I should not need extra keystrokes... it should be in focus. A glance away from my gun's sights should not require me to push the "I'm looking around so please don't give me eyestrain" button. It's another layer of disconnect between game and gamer, which is something this game really did not need to hobble itself with (even further).6) Mucking about with Time - The Bait and SwitchI was also a little disappointed in the time abilities themselves. They last too short a duration and take too long to recharge. I do like that your built-in CoD-esque healing continues to progress at a normal subjective rate even if you slow, stop, or reverse time (so you can literally stop time to heal), but slowing time lasts about 10 subjective seconds, and stopping and reversing time each last about 5 subjective seconds. Not really enough to truly feel the "god mode" the marketing tantalizes you with. And then to recharge takes a good 10 seconds in which you have to just cower behind your box and hope you don't catch a stray bullet.7) This is the "military grade" suit?Why do you cower? Because it takes about 2 shots to kill you. This was a poor time to embrace realism in a game based on surrealism. You literally can take less punishment than an asthmatic kitten. This is especially irritating given how often enemies will depend upon the "surprise I'm behind you!" tactic.8) We know our gimmick and we milk the S#!@ out of it!Using time manipulation in combat is all well and good, but I guess the developers didn't feel that making you so fragile that you risked disaster if you were fighting in any other circumstance OTHER than an altered time flow was enough to press home that this game was about mucking with time. Every level is chock full of little puzzle-obstacles that can only be overcome with the use of the right bit of time manipulation. YES. I GET IT. TIME IS MY PLAYTHING. So why does it feel so much like work?

I wanted gripe number 9 to be the ending. I was so looking forward to saying "and then to top it all off, they ruined it with that dumb ending that I could have told you was coming." But I can't say that. Because I didn't see the ending. Because I couldn't stand playing all the way through to the end. Maybe this game could have gotten a "C" if it came out in any other month than November 07, but all the other top shelf releases have firmly put it in my "never gonna touch this again" pile. Verdict: D

Not sure that WoW fanatics have anything to worry about here (despite Vivendi being Blizzard's parent company)... It's not the same as when EA bought Mythic and ruined DAOC. After all, it's a merger, not a buyout. And second of all, it's not like Activision has quite the reputation for ruining games and churning out the same game over and over again that EA does.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

We’re almost ready to re-open the WAR Beta, and I know that our Beta Community has been gnashing their teeth in anticipation. Guess what? They should be giddy with excitement because we’ll have an amazing amount of new features and enhancements in the game for them to test, as well as brand new Elf content for them to experience.

Before getting into content specifics, I wanted to share a quick word about our testing process as we’ll be doing things a little differently in this next phase of Beta II. Instead of bringing up the Beta server and leaving it up 24/7 for free play, we’ll be moving forward with a series of focused Beta events set around a specific concept or two. These events will last anywhere from 3-10 days and will enable us to gather specific, detailed feedback from our Beta Community in regards to specific features and locations. We’ll be bringing the server down between each event for a day or two in order to prepare for the next focused event. This will also give us time to process the feedback we receive and incorporate it in future events.

When Beta reopens, players will be treated to what we’re calling our “Dark Elf Sneak Peek”. During the first weekend, the Beta Community will be able to play through the Dark Elf starting and Tier 1 areas with two new careers. We are going to ease players back into the Beta to spend some quality time with the Dark Elves, as well as with many newly updated UI elements, such as the Tome of Knowledge. We are looking forward to hearing the community’s thoughts on these areas of the game.

Much of the testing over the next three months will be focused on RvR and the enhancements we are implementing to this system. The team has been diligently working on the Open Field RvR experience while the beta has been closed and they are anxious to debut the expanded Battlefield Objectives with ... wait for it ... new RvR Keeps.

While we aren’t ready to publicly discuss Keeps and their siege mechanics in great detail at this time, anyone that has taken part in a Keep battle in Dark Age of Camelot® will have an idea of what we have in store for WAR (though it should be noted that this new Keeps system will differ from the one found in DAoC). The addition of Keeps will bring focus and meaning to Open Field RvR and beta participants should be able to experience this new system in its early stages by the end of the year.

Player Careers have also received a lot of love and attention these past couple of months. One of the biggest issues raised during the beta was the perceived lack of differentiation between characters of the same career and same level. Why should every level 30 Warrior Priest look and play the same way?

We are actually approaching this issue from two different angles:

First, we’re introducing the concept of Career Mastery to better differentiate character abilities. This new system allows a player to customize their character’s skills to suit their desired play style. It allows an archetype career (Tank, Ranged DPS, etc.) to stay true to its role, while giving the player the flexibility to pursue specialized skills to make their character more unique. To learn more about Career Mastery, please read this week’s Beta Update posted on the WAR Herald.

Second, we are implementing our Trophy system which will allow players to visually differentiation their characters from others of the same career. This system has always been planned and is now being introduced into the game for the first time. In a nutshell, players are awarded visual bits, or Trophies, that they are then allowed to place on their character in pre-determined slots (the number of slots is determined by a characters level). Over the course of the game, you’ll literally be able to earn hundreds of these Trophies, way more than you’ll be able to equip at any one time, and display them in thousands of unique combinations.

This combination of the Trophy and Career Mastery systems, combined with our player creation options, numerous available armor sets, armor tinting system, and weapon variety will ensure that no two players will ever look the same on the field of battle in WAR.

One final system to discuss and that is Public Quests. PQs are an exciting aspect of the PvE side of WAR, and they are something new and completely unique to our game. They have been very well received in beta, but we’ve been tweaking and enhancing them to make them even more engaging and fun. One of the biggest changes to PQs are the way we divvy up loot. We’ve implemented a new and improved loot system and we’ll be very interested to hear what the testers think of it.

With all of these new additions and exciting new Elf content, we’re certainly going to be keeping the Beta Community busy well into the new year.

Speaking of the new year, you’ll be happy to know that we’ll be *finally* inviting a few thousand guild members (from specific guilds chosen in our Guild Beta contest) into the Beta in early ’08. They will be helping us test the newly implemented “Living Guild” features. Believe it when we say that guilds won’t just be a glorified chat channel in our game. They will have their own personality that the guild members can craft as they play WAR, and some significant new ideas make them a vital part of our game.

That is all for now from the Beta. For those of you still waiting to get in, keep checking your inboxes because we’ll continually be bringing new participants into the game as we ramp up our testing efforts in the new year.

Every week or so, you’ll find a regular Beta Update from the WAR team discussing their current projects posted on the WAR Herald. This is a great way to keep up with the ongoing development of the game and learn more about the team’s goals and vision.

Only by the divine will of the Witch King is a Druchii allowed to study the high art of magic. Those who succeed in the twelve tests of a Sorceress are found worthy and embrace the Dark Arts of his majesty. A Sorceress must walk the dark paths of the Realm of Chaos, the deep pits of the oceans, and the raging bowels of the fiery mountains in her quest for knowledge. The channeling of the raw Winds of Chaos and the binding of these forces give the Sorceress her power. Such power is vast but dangerous, and the aspirant to the Dark Convent of the Sorceresses must be courageous and strong. She must be wedded first and foremost to the great Witch King, and so may never take a husband nor sire children.

- From the Sixth Book of Secrets by Kaladhtoir of Clad Karond

Watch the exclusive videointroduction of the Sorceress (more breaking news!) and stay tuned for more career information in future newsletters.

Learn more about the Sorceress in PLAY Magazine’s Girls of Gaming Vol. 5 (available in early December).

We are very excited to announce that work has begun on a new cinematic trailer for Warhammer Online! We are once again collaborating with Blur Studio, the Venice, CA based company that created our first cinematic and introduced the world to WAR.

To whet your appetite and share with you just a hint of the many great visuals still to come, here is a sneak peek at the video’s Chaos Marauder in all his mutated glory.

Stay tuned for more as each month we’ll be giving you another peek at the work being done on the cinematic. Enjoy!

"While Lesser races must study magic in its corrupted broken form, our Mages harness its power as pure mystical energy. Our minor spells, those Lores taught to the humans by mighty Teclis, are but a pale reflection of the power that can be wielded by an Asur fully trained in the magical arts of the white tower."

Violent and apocalyptic energies were unleashed, tearing the northern lands of Ulthuan apart. A wall of seawater a thousand feet high crashed into Nagarythe and drowned countless thousands. At the last moment, Malekith and the other surviving Sorcerers chanted spells to preserve their greatest fortresses, transforming them into floating Black Arks. These sailed westward, eventually coming to rest in the north of the New World. Malekith named this land Naggaroth and his exiled people, now called Dark Elves, made a new civilization for themselves.

What little remains of Nagarythe is a tortured and twisted land, blasted by fire and seared by destructive magical energies. Strange, mutated creatures stalk this gloomy, barren wasteland of gray earth and black stone. The High Elves named this cursed place the Shadowlands, for it seemed always to be in darkness.

I say this with every ounce of humility, it has little to do with the fact that I’m working on it. I say this because, not a conversation about the Tome goes by where I don’t end up leaving, pad of paper and pen in hand, rushing back to my desk to take notes about new Tome ideas. Every presentation I’ve ever given has begun with me suggesting some of the ways in which we use the Tome, and the recipients giving me fifty of their own ideas. My mother tells me what she’d like to see in the Tome. The press tells us what to put in the Tome. People at conventions tell us what should go in the Tome. And above all, every person working on Warhammer Online has an impact on what goes into the Tome.

So it is my great honor to be able to work on this system.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the concept of the Tome of Knowledge, allow me to use common references that may set your imagination ablaze. Picture the diary that Sean Connery (Henry Jones) keeps in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and then multiply by it by the Xbox 360 Achievement system, and then multiply that by a thousand.

Player Mounts are the primary form of free-roaming fast transport in WAR. Travel routes are great when you want to get from Point A to Point B, but nothing beats a trusty warhorse if you want to take a journey that is off the beaten path! Players will have a variety of options when it comes to choosing and using a mount, including unique mount types for each race and temporary “rental” mounts for low level players.

However, you will have to be careful when riding you’re trusty steed across the battlefield. You definitely don’t want to be thrown from you’re horse because you tried to ride it into a lake. And you certainly don’t want to get shot off the back of you’re steed as you ride into battle. In future newsletters we will dive deeper into the mounts in WAR, including specifics on where you and you’re mount can travel and customization options your high level mounts!

Greenskin MountBoar Light

Greenskin MountBoar Medium

Greenskin MountBoar Heavy

Greenskin MountWolf Light

Greenskin MountWolf Medium

Greenskin MountWolf Heavy

Dwarf MountAle Powered Mount

Chaos MountDaemonic Steed Light

Chaos MountDaemonic Steed Medium

Chaos MountDaemonic Steed Heavy

Empire MountHorse Medium

High Elf MountHorse Light

High Elf MountHorse Medium

High Elf MountHorse Heavy

Stay tuned for more images and information about player mounts in WAR.

Destruction players will come across a Dwarf Ironclad crashed ashore near the Port of Barak Varr. Behind it is a wake of destroyed greenskin barges, and fortified within is the King of Barak Varr himself, Byrrnoth Grundadrakk. Players will fight their way into the nautical tank and eventually come to face with the stalwart king in epic battle.

King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk eyes narrowed as the extent of the destruction across the Port of Barak Varr came into view: fires raged, billowing clouds of smoke rose, and greenskins swarmed. With a grim resolve in his eyes, he roared a command to his engineers below decks, "Higher! Stack the furnaces higher! I want to smell the fire of Grimnir’s rage aboard my ship!"

The stout king surveyed the length of his Ironclad. Its hull was fashioned with ore from the deepest mines in all of Karak Ankor. Its engine was seen to by the most reliable of engineers this side of Karaz-a-Karak. He whispered the prayer of his ancestors reassuring himself. "By hammer, by forge, by beard, we shall endure always as the mountain does, and so shall my ship."

Warhammer Online Podcasts are now available on iTunes! Subscribe today!

Click Image to Watch Podcast

This month, Associate Producer Josh Drescher unveils two major updates to important areas of the game: the Career System and RvR Combat. Based on your feedback, we are adding some exciting new enhancements to the career system that will allow players to create more individual and specialized characters. We are also adding new features to Open World RvR to make it more meaningful and exciting. Watch the video for the details!

Each newsletter, the Video of the Month brings you a fresh, new look at WAR in action! These videos are not highly polished marketing trailers, but clips of raw game footage showcasing many of the cool features of WAR.

Click Image to Watch Video

This month we wander into the dark streets of the Inevitable City, the sprawling capital city of followers of Chaos. Though still very much a work-in-progress, take a frightening journey through this urban nightmare in an exclusive first look at this tainted city.

Inevitable City Concepts

The Maw - Exterior Main Gate

Streets of the City

Streets of the City

Altar of Khorne

Feast Hall

Bank

Archmagus Tower

The Forge

Library

Join Creative Director, Paul Barnett, and his trusty video phone for a truly unique look at the making of WAR. This month, Paul shares more from behind-the-scenes including Chaos city goodness, more on the sorceress and why you just need to trust in the chicken.

The WAR Beta is scheduled to reopen in December and now is the time to sign up if you’d like to take part in one of the largest beta tests ever for an MMORPG. We’ll be admitting a horde of new recruits so sharpen your sword, unleash your inner mutation, and prepare to meet your destiny on the battlefields of Warhammer Online..

There are a million stories in the Age of Reckoning just waiting to be told. What is your tale?

Okay soz dis is a story about howz I killed a whole army of stunties and saved da whole marshez outpost. Oh and got rich too.

Anyway I'm runnin along in da swamp, and I sees dis ork boy standin at da base of a hill. He tellz me that therez a bunch of stunties wit cannons up on dat dere hill, and he sez if I dont come wit em and kill all da stunties, he's gonna eat me!

Now I'z usually not likin' threatz n wot not, but dis ork was pretty big, and I wuz thinkin he could prob'ly outrun me, so I figgure best to listen to im.

Receive 15% of of any purchase made at the EA Mythic Store December 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007.* Enter this code at checkout - holiday07. Supplies are limited so order now and start your WAR collection today!

Feeling creative? We know we have some talented fans out there and now is the time for you to demonstrate your skills. Send us your WAR-inspired art and we’ll showcase the best submissions in upcoming newsletters. Plus, featured artists will be invited to join us in the closed beta test!

Get into the spirit of the season and send us your best holiday related WAR Fan Art to be featured in the December newsletter!

Have a knack for creative writing or a story you are dying to tell? We are looking to “publish” the best WAR-inspired fan fiction written by our readers. We will choose our favorites and feature them in upcoming newsletters. Plus, featured writers will be invited to join us in the closed beta test!Submissions must be no longer than 2000 words.

The Legends and Lore section of the WAR Herald is only as good as the community can make it! Check out the stories from the Armies of Order and Destruction, and let us know how many mugs of ale each tale is worth. (Votes do not immediately display.) Think you can do better? Submit your own!

Welcome to the WAR Grab Bag, where our friendly neighborhood community team answers the most pressing, the most popular, and the most interesting questions from fans. Keep those questions coming, as we’re eager to hear what you have to say!

"MMOs are nothing without the players. It is my belief that if players are able to effectively communicate, then the MMO will thrive. The Community Systems team is really striving to create the functionality needed to make a living, breathing community in our game."

"Whereas another person might spend their days at work thinking about how best they can expedite an order or shipment, I spend many hours thinking how best to mutate a zealot’s face into the most painful and disturbing configuration possible."

The WAR Beta may be closed until December but there is still chance to get in when it reopens with all new content and RvR mayhem! Each month we'll randomly select 20 names from the newsletter subscriber database for entry into the Beta Test.* If you are a current Warhammer newsletter subscriber, then you're automatically entered into the drawing every month. If you are not yet a newsletter subscriber, visit betacenter.eamythic.com to register for the Beta and subscribe to the monthly newsletter.

Each month we’ll be shining the spotlight on WAR fan sites that exemplify what we consider to be the best in WAR community spirit.

Warhammer Vault is celebrating its first anniversary of covering Warhammer Online news and providing some of our community members a place to call home. As a thank you and well wishes for many more years of working together we have provided them with some exclusive screenshots. You can check them out and the rest of the site here!

WAR-RvR recently got a new coat of WAR Paint in order to provide you with as much news and content as they can throw at you. Check out the new look and stop by the message boards while you’re at it!

Is your fan site doing something cool, informative, or fun? Let us know by sending an email to war-community@mythic.ea.com and you could be featured in the next community spotlight.

The high elves have long been the protectors of the Warhammer World, and their homeland of Ulthuan is known for the powerful magic that surrounds it. At the heart of Ulthuan lies a magical vortex, and the mages who created it remain trapped in a space out of time, endlessly working the spell that keeps the world from becoming a seething Realm of Chaos.

When Ulthuan comes under attack from the forces of Chaos and dark elves led by the Witch King and the hag sorceress, Morathi, the high elves must hold firm or face disastrous consequences.

In Defenders of Ulthuan Graham McNeill tells the epic tale of the struggle between good and evil.

You can read a sample chapter of Defenders of Ulthuan for free on the Black Library website.